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Book Reviews

188os to 192o. The study includes broad coverage of the most important educa-tional issues of the day. By including a discussion on education for African Amer-icans and women, the author also discusses how southern educators during theProgressive Era perpetuated traditional divisions of race, sex, and class.During the era most southern schools were slighted by their state legislatorswho fought to keep their tight fists on educational budgets. Without adequatefunding, progress came most slowly. And, of course, black institutions usually re-ceived only the "crumbs" of state appropriations. Further, schooling for blacks re-mained based on the Tuskegee model that stressed industrial education, forwhites expected African Americans to supply the "muscle" of the South's rising in-dustrial complex, to remain the "mudsill" on which the southern economy wasbuilt. Likewise, educators of women were most careful not to violate "convention"when it came to the woman's primary place as the defender of children, thehome, and the South's traditional cultural life.In addition to his broad coverage of education in the South, the author delvesinto "micro-history" by specifically focusing on four university presidents andtheir institutions: Charles Dabney of the University of Tennessee; Samuel C.Mitchell of the University of South Carolina; Walter B. Hill of the University ofGeorgia; and Edwin Alderman of the University of Virginia. Dennis explains howthese administrators managed to professionalize their schools and how they-andtheir faculties-developed a social role by becoming servants of their states by of-fering public programs and expert advice on everything from the commonschools to public health to highway construction. The presidents focused onbuilding realistic bridges between northern philanthropists and southern intel-lectuals and on developing utilitarian schooling that would invigorate the Souththrough technological progress.All the administrators covered by Dennis had political troubles from beginningto end. Notably, President Mitchell at South Carolina had to withstand a concert-ed political attack by Coleman L. Blease who was elected governor in 1910. He ex-ploited the South Carolinians' race and class antagonisms. He accused Mitchell oflobbying the Peabody Education Fund to divert money meant for white women toAfrican Americans. Blease vetoed Mitchell's budgets on occasion and complainedthat the university produced inferior graduates when compared to private institu-tions like Wofford College. The governor also charged that Mitchell's facultymembers spent their summers on vacations to Europe at the expense of the state'staxpayers. In the end, Mitchell was forced out of his job. The other educatorsfaced similar problems in their respective states. Indeed, Dabney eventually gaveup and fled the South.Although Dennis has praise for the presidents for modernizing their universi-ties, he points out that the administrators failed to generate the type of economicprogress that they had envisioned for Dixie. The "real" New South's birth had toawait the developments of the New Deal, World War II, and the Civil Rights move-ment.